BERLIN, June 20 (UPI) -- Almost anyone with enough money can get a ticket to a World Cup game in Germany if they are willing to go to the thriving black market.
While tickets were officially sold at prices ranging from 45 euros ($56) to 100 euros ($126), the going rate for resale is 200 to 500 euros, Deutsche Welle reports. The price for the final in Berlin is 5,900 euros or about $7,426.
FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, has arranged spot checks at stadiums to make sure that ticket holders are the registered purchasers. But those checks are apparently very spotty and even people who are caught with black-market tickets can register them on the spot.
In fact, at least one member of FIFA's executive board has been caught re-selling tickets. Ismail Bhamjee, former president of the Botswana Football Association, admitted selling 12 tickets to the game between England and Trinidad and Tobago for three times their face value.
Bhamjee is expected to be forced to resign from the board, the first such action in the group's 102-year history.
